Nurses are doing better despite still high burnout rates

Nurses across the country are feeling a little better about their jobs these days, with a new Nurse.org survey showing that 60% still love being a nurse. But 62% remain concerned about the future of nursing.

The numbers have improved since 2021, but nurses continue to report high levels of burnout, mental health issues and a lack of support, among other difficulties. About 39% of them stated that they were dissatisfied with their current job, although this answer varied depending on the level of education and specialty.

Staffing problems and persistent shortages of nurses continue to create problems for the country’s nurses. As many as 91% of respondents believe that the shortage of nurses is getting worse, with burnout, poor working conditions and insufficient pay being the main causes.

Meanwhile, 79% said their units were understaffed, and 71% said improved staffing ratios would have the biggest impact on nurse shortages.

And, of course, nurses want to be paid more. 55% have had a salary increase in the last year, but 75% still feel they are underpaid and 52% feel their hospital does not pay nurses with similar experience equally.

WHAT IMPACT

81% of nurses said they felt tired last year, down slightly from 2021, and 81% also say their mental health was affected, down again from 83% the previous year.

Another trend moving in the right direction is that while 61% of nurses feel unsupported at work, this is significantly less than the 77% who felt this way in 2021. last year compared to 38% a year earlier.

As the figures showed, nurses are ambivalent about choosing the profession of nursing. 36% are happy that they chose it, 40% are not, 24% are neither.

When it came to job satisfaction, nurses with more education did better. Those with postgraduate diplomas saw job satisfaction hovering around 60%, while those with only a certificate or nursing diploma hovered just above 20%.

Bedside nurses were the most satisfied of any specialty; in obstetrics was the least.

When asked about their career plans, 16% of nurses said they are happy where they are, up from 12% in 2021. But more nurses want to leave sick leave: 35% in 2022 compared to 29% in 2021.

When asked to select the factors that will most influence the shortage of nurses, the most popular responses were improved staffing ratios (71%), higher pay (64%) and better working conditions (41%). The least responding factors were efforts to reduce workplace violence (11%), mental health support (10%), and efforts to increase the number of nurse trainers and educators (7%).

BIG TREND

In the 2022 Nurses Pay Survey Report, 29% of nurses said they were considering leaving the profession, a sharp increase from the 11% who considered such a move in the 2020 survey.

Among respondents, 4% said they were working as field nurses, and 62% of them became field nurses in 2020 or 2021. The higher pay far outweighed all other reasons to become a field nurse, followed by dissatisfaction with management.

In October, the Department of Health and Human Services allocated $13 million to support nursing education and training to increase the number of nurses and improve access to medical education.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) awards are part of a series of investments by HHS and the Department of Labor to support finding good, quality nursing jobs. Investing in the nursing workforce was a key component of President Biden’s goal to improve the safety and quality of care in nursing homes.

Twitter: @JELagasse
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